Hard water stains are the absolute enemy of anyone that wants to keep a clean shower. These stains, often known as lime scale, or chalky deposits, are actually dried minerals, most commonly calcium carbonate. When your home has hard water, it contains a variety of minerals, and when the water dries, these are left behind, giving your glass a milky appearance. 

If these deposits are left uncleaned the glass can become very hard to see through, and your overall experience using the bathroom becomes quite unpleasant. They can also be very difficult to remove once they have taken hold. Ideally the best way to prevent these stains is to dry the glass often, but this is not always easy. 

You can use products such as GLASSGUARD™ to help the water bead off, as this stops the water from drying on the glass and causing the stain. But, to apply this revolutionary product, the glass needs to be cleared of all the hard water marks.

To help you out we have put together a guide on cleaning hard water spots from glass:

How To Get You Glass Shower Screen Clean

At GLASSGUARD we are committed to eco-friendly products, so for this we’ll only be using products that do not harm our environment.

For hard water stains you can clean most of them with a mix of vinegar and water. Make sure you have gloves, as the vinegar mixture is slightly acidic, (PH 2) and it can hurt if you have any open cuts  on your hands. Mix the vinegar with water at a ratio of 50:50. For the most part this mixture is safe but try to keep it away from wood products as it has been known to damage these.

Apply the vinegar onto the problem glass, you can do this with a spray bottle, adjust the bottle so it’s about half-way between mist and stream. Let the mixture sit on the hard water stains for around 20 minutes. The perfect time for a coffee break!

After the vinegar mixture has time to do its work, you can start by scrubbing with a brush. An old toothbrush is perfect unless you have a lot of area to cover, then you may need to use a larger brush. You can also use non-abrasive steel wool - you can get ‘0000’ steel wool from most hardware stores. Steel wool is great if the stains have been there for a long time and had time to build up.

When the stains have been completely removed, wipe the glass clean with a wet cloth and dry with a microfibre towel. Inspect the surface closely looking for any missed spots and take care of them.

Cleaning Tips For Difficult Hard Water Stains

While the above covers most stains, some can be exceptionally difficult to remove. However, there are some other things you can try, here are five of our suggestions to get rid of these more difficult stains.

1. Use a stronger vinegar mix, make the mixture to a ratio of 75:25
2. Let the mix sit for longer on the stain, try 30 minutes, or longer - maybe go out for a coffee.
3. Add some baking soda to the mixture. Mix the baking soda and the vinegar solution in a bowl until it forms a paste and spread this onto the stain
4. If these do not work, you may need to purchase some hard water stain remover from a hardware store, check that it’s environmentally friendly and read all the directions.
5. If nothing else works, perhaps it is time for an upgrade and a bathroom renovation. While this is extreme, stains that are this difficult to remove are probably very old.

Using GLASSGUARD™ To Protect Your Shower Screen From Hard Water

For the application it’s important to wear gloves and read the directions on the bottle, ideally you should wear a mask during the application process.

Check that the glass is free of any residue, you can clean the glass with an alcohol based cleaner, to make sure it’s free from any oils.

Apply the Nanocoat

Working in 3 square feet (1 m2) section at a time, spray the nancoat across the glass. Generally you’ll only need two or three sprays, a little goes a long way!

Use a new microfibre cloth to spread the nancoat around the screen in a circular motion until it is totally dry. This can take around two minutes. After it is dry you can start on the next section, keep going until all the glass has been coated.

After Application

It is usual to see ‘swirls’ or ‘streaks’ on the glass after application. This is a build up of excess nanocoat and is totally normal. After about an hour, you can wipe the surface down with a damp cloth to polish the glass and remove this excess nanocoating.

It’s not uncommon for you to repeat this process until all the marks are gone. But after completing the process a few times you should have perfectly clear glass. 

Allow for at least 24 hours for the nanocoat to be completely dry and try not to wet the glass during this time.